About 200 people watched the debate, ranging from teenagers to a mother with her newborn to pensioners.
Healthcare, in particular, was a recurring topic.
Candidates focused their responses mainly on wider healthcare issues, although overnight closures at Napier Health, a nurse-led urgent care service that has been closed 47 times this year, were briefly touched on.
Labour candidate Alex Hedley speaking during the debate. Photo / NZME
During the 2023 election, the Napier electorate was flipped from Labour to National, when Nimon won the seat by nearly 9000 votes over her closest opponent, Labour’s Mark Hutchinson.
The seat was previously held by ex-Labour MP Stuart Nash for three terms, but he did not contest the seat in 2023.
Here is a selection of the candidates’ responses.
What part of the Government needs more of a presence in Napier?
Alex Hedley: Definitely health services.
John Ormond: I would like less men with clipboards in Napier, but we of course want as much investment as we can in healthcare, infrastructure – all of those wonderful things we rely on our Government for.
Roy Boonen: Health and more public housing.
Te Kira Lawrence: Healthcare. We need oversight and accountability of Health NZ, with more teeth to investigate where the problems lie, challenge bureaucracy, and ensure resources are reaching frontline services in Napier.
Katie Nimon: Reliable and sustainable healthcare, and all public services to be honest, and affordable services as well.
Rachel Ward: Healthcare as soon as possible.
Napier Health on Wellesley Rd has been hampered by closures this year for its nurse-led overnight urgent healthcare service. Photo / NZME
What is your solution for healthcare in Napier?
Responses abridged
Roy Boonen: The Green Party’s goal is … free GP visits and free dental care. To fund that, we are promoting a wealth tax … We will support Labour’s position of giving every nursing graduate a job. And we need to address the underlying issues of housing and food security if we want to improve health and wellbeing.
Katie Nimon: Ultimately, we need to have the trifecta. We need to have good primary care, good urgent care, and of course we need to have a world-class hospital. We are a small region and … we have got to have one really good hospital, which we are investing in. Already over a couple of hundred million dollars has been invested. Just yesterday we opened a new 28-bed ward … we have to remember about Wairoa as well and work out how we have regional connectivity … also we don’t want people going to urgent care with things that they need to go to ED for, and delaying their vital care, but likewise we can take pressure off ED if we have a really sustainable urgent care as well.
Alex Hedley: Health services are a big issue here in Napier. Couple of simple facts about health: more staff can deliver more services … we are going to hire our graduate nurses so that they have jobs here in NZ … half of them don’t get jobs here and they’re looking overseas for work. We will employ them … fixing our staffing shortages will feed into fixing our overnight care closures as well. The other fact is we can’t treat our way out of a health crisis. We have to have a focus on prevention. That is why Labour proposes three free GP visits.
Te Kira Lawrence: We need accountability. Our ED has struggled for years, not just in this Government … we need to look at smarter models of care here. But, most importantly, NZ First recognises we can’t keep pouring billions of dollars into treating sickness without addressing why NZers are sick. Our Make NZ Healthy policy puts prevention at the heart of healthcare … supporting early intervention and freeing GPs from unnecessary admin so they can focus on patients.
John Ormond: Health expenditure has gone from $16b to $36b in less than 10 years. So, we need to understand why we are not getting the value for money that we want. If you look at EDs, people are going in there because they can’t get into their GPs. Act has a policy that we want to empower pharmacists to do up to 20 things that GPs currently do … also our expenditure on pharmaceuticals sits around 5% of the health budget. We want to gradually increase it to 15% … spending money earlier on is a lever for the healthcare system.
Rachel Ward: From what I’ve been hearing, Napier’s health services are becoming increasingly urgent. So they need urgent attention. So does the rest of the country … what Opportunity is proposing to do is increase health funding to 9% of GDP, it is currently 7.5%. And we would put more money into preventative and primary healthcare, so that should help Napier … one of our bottom lines is a 10-year funded plan done by health professionals.
Why should people vote for you or your party?
Responses abridged
Te Kira Lawrence: I am an everyday working parent who understands the pressures that our families here are facing every day. Cost of living, housing, healthcare, and just trying to simply get ahead … decisions made in Wellington must reflect what is happening in our communities. I want Napier and Wairoa to thrive … NZ First has always championed our regions and provinces.
Roy Boonen: We have degraded the environment … we have had 40 years of a free-market capitalist system. It has created ever-increasing social and economic inequality … the role of the Government is to design a system that creates hope for a population. More of the same won’t work … the Green Party is working toward a better future for the environment and a better future for all of us.
Katie Nimon: I consider myself an incredibly connected MP. That is what I see as the single most important part of my job. It’s getting out across the entire electorate … and the more that I know my electorate, the more that I can represent it … National is focused on fixing the basics, which we have been doing for the last three years, and going forward building the future.
John Ormond: There are 78 ministerial portfolios across 43 departments … so one of our flagship policies is to reduce the number of ministries in this country down to 18. The second lock on NZ’s potential is way too many rules getting in the way of people who want to do things … and the third is identity politics … race should not be a factor in the public system. We are all one people.
Alex Hedley: It is feedback from our community around our health services in Napier, and the state of them, that has prompted me to stand for Parliament. We have had a gradual retreat of health services from Napier over the past few decades. I think it’s time that we … return some of those health services back toward Napier … But this election is about the cost of living, it’s about good jobs … and it’s about good homes. Labour has a plan for all those things.
Rachel Ward: Opportunity has some amazing environmental policies. But, also, as a voter and as a mum and as a landowner and business owner, I’m just so frustrated with the direction that NZ is going in … this is successive Governments … it feels like we are not getting anywhere … Opportunity wants to create a NZ that is focused on unity, innovation and nature.